Standards-Based Bulletin Boards

Overview
A standards-based format moves bulletin boards from "fluff" to teaching and learning boards. The
idea is that a bulletin board is a window into the instruction in a classroom. The boards are used to
show teaching that is going on inside, but are also used for learning as other teachers, classes,
students, parents, and visitors all stop to read the student work. Bulletin boards are one of the ways
that we make our teaching visible and transparent.

The bulletin board shows the con-

nection between a student’s work,
the standard the work is to meet,
and the assessment that is used to
decide when work is good enough.
Work that is posted will either meet
or exceed the standards, and that
will be indicated in the commentary
that is written by the teacher.
For consistency, we encourage the
use of specific criteria for bulletin
boards. Basically a Standards-based
Bulletin Board contains the following
features:
Title:
Each board has a title that describes
the big picture. Teachers sometimes
use catchy phrases or a play on
words to entice someone walking by
the board to stop and read.

Standard:
The standard(s) (student expectations) is/are reproduced
exactly as it is written in the TEKS. Based on the assign-
ment, more than one standard may be addressed. To max-
imize student understanding and increase the opportunity
for success, it is recommended that a task address no more
than three to five standards.
Task:
The task/lesson description is an explanation of what the
class or
student was asked to do. Teachers often include a list of the
mini-lesson taught prior to the specific assignment so that
the reader can easily see how the specific task fits into a
string of lessons.
Circumstance of Performance:
This explains how the assignment was executed in the
classroom.
Rubrics:
Rubrics tell the students exactly what the expectation is on
the assignment.
Student Work:
Three to six pieces of student work are posted that meet the standard, but often show a range of work. To max-
imize understanding for the person reading the board (student, parent, teacher), a minimum of three pieces of
work is recommended. Teachers discuss work before it is posted on the board to make sure they are judging
work at the same standard. The work that is posted will often be displayed with flair, so it will stand out. All of
the students work is posted next to the Standards board.
In the picture above you see work from a 3rd grade Language Arts classroom. The students wrote about Fall us-
ing their 5 senses (hence the title). Displayed is the final piece of student work, but also something from each
stage that led up to the final piece (plan, draft, revise, and edit).

Commentary:
For each piece of work displayed, commentary that is written by the teacher. Students in grades 3-5 also write
commentary about their own work and work of their peer. Commentary explains why or how the particular piece
meets or exceeds the standard. The commentary should not simply be a restating of the standard because that
does not provide information as to why or how the work meets the standard. As you can see from examples to the
right; commentary is very specific to what the student has done. This component of the board is extremely im-
portant because it provides essential feedback to students and helps them understand what they must do to meet
the expected standard.
 The Standard of The
Standards Board:
We hang all of our standards
boards at the exact same
height. We do this so when
you look down the hall every-
thing is seen at the same
height. Appearance of the
boards is important because
we want the kids to see that
we are proud of their work
and that they should be too.
We often use pictures of the
students to increase the ex-
citement for the students
about their work and their
boards.

A QR code is a great way to

show people exactly what
happened during the lesson
or show a final product from
the lesson. QR codes can
take you to powerpoints,
videos, animotos, or other
applications used in
technology.

In addition to the required parts listed, the bulletin board might also include rubrics, artifacts such as
photographs of the process, models or artistic representations of a product or experiment, charts,
graphs and anything else a teacher may dream up! Risk-taking is encouraged and reinforced! On the top
board the teacher included a menu that the students used to create their word problems. They also used
literature in the lesson, so they included a picture of that too. In the bottom board the teacher used pic-
tures of the forms that students had to use in order to get the proper stances to achieve the proper
throwing form. These additions make the board easier to understand for those that are learning from it.

All teachers put up Standards-based Bulletin Boards. You will see them outside the gym, music, and art
rooms. We use our boards as a learning tool by discussing what is on the boards and what each student
needs to do to get on them.